The Chronicles of Clyde: Unafilliated

by F. E. Arliss

  Coates and Cole took to the self-defense training like ducks to water and were good matches, physically, for the more experienced Dag and Arc … though Arc tried to avoid at all costs getting whacked by Coates, whose orc-fists packed a tremendous amount of power. It quickly honed all their fighting skills.

  That turned out to be a good thing. The universe was getting crowded and cantankerous. Everyone seemed scared of everyone else, and the strong preyed on the weak. Cargo haulers, with their boxy bodies and light-weight armor, were perceived as easy targets.

  Even the newly-formed human space force, the Intergalactic Guard, were scared of the Idolum, an energy-consuming species that preyed on mammals, and had begun engaging in heated battles with the elusive species, which were already divided due to some sort of feud over a long-dead Idolum queen. According to Quirke, it was a feud about honor.

  Pirates of all species plagued the long-haul corridors and some carriers began hiring security details to accompany the freighters rather than counting on each planet’s government to protect them. There was no law in deep space.

  After the debilitating run-in with the Dreasing, Commander Quirke was still angry and volatile. He’d lost two crew and though they’d prevailed, he wasn’t satisfied with the armaments on Clyde. Instead of hiring escort security, he took a huge part of their bounty and had high-tech armor made and mounted on the Clyde. It was made from the newest technology, a super light-weight but intensely resilient ore produced by the Soclaued, a sloth-like mining creature that produce a rare and very hard, light-weight ore by eating and then excreting minerals. Once manufactured into armor it was basically impenetrable. “Crap coating,” Quirke had called it with his rasping laugh.

  He also upgraded the engines to compensate for the added weight and purchased a large, top-mount laser cannon and two ugly, very scarred, Idolum fighters off a junk dealer on the water planet of Gateka. They took up space in the hold, but Quirke figured they’d be worth it. Now, with the already existing plasma cannons on Clyde’s belly, they at least had 360-degree coverage and one hell of a hard shell.

  The jellyfish-like species on Gateka were highly specialized in tech and had repaired the used Idolum fighters with upgraded weapons and more human-friendly guidance systems. It took several weeks of training until most of the crew were capable on the controls.

  Eventually, it became clear that Coates was not going to be a pilot, no matter how hard the instructor worked with him. That was fine with Coates; he’d man the laser cannon.

  Chapter Five

  Shot From a Canon

  The crew found Birdie at the Gateka shipyard where they’d gone for their Idolum fighter training. Birdie had no last name and worked cleaning parts and hiding from everyone. She was a slightly-built girl with particularly long limbs and dirty light-brown hair, a Vanguardian trait. Most Vanguardians looked human except for the longer limbs, amber-orange eyes and the hair that grew like a mane down the middle of their backs.

  Birdie had been deemed ‘flawed’ by her own species, then sold into indentured servitude to the shipyard as a worker. Her ‘flaw’ was that she didn’t like other people. She didn’t trust them, and she couldn’t be bothered to be nice to them. The Vanguard were nothing if not polite. Birdie would have been a thorn in their side.

  No one even spotted her until the afternoon of the third day when Arc glimpsed a small figure watching them from behind a pile of armor scraps. Digging her finger into Dag’s side she whispered to him, “Someone’s watching us. Behind the pile of armor to your right.”

  Dag took his time and turned his head slowly, pretending to itch the inside of his right arm. “Yeah, I see her. It’s a kid. Vanguardian,” he whispered to her without turning his head back her way. “Probably works here.”

  “Vanguardians give their rejects to different posts as workers if they don’t fit into their society. Weirdly wrong, but there you have it. Honorable jerks, that’s the Vanguardians. Won’t back out of a deal, or break their word, but they’ll sell one of their own that doesn’t fit their mold of perfection,” he said with a snort of disgust.

  “Why is she hiding?” Arc asked softly. “Wonder if she thinks we’ll hurt her.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe she’s just shy. Not everyone has your unending propensity to club people verbally until they get what they want, you know?” Dag said, turning back to her and grinning.

  Digging her elbow hard, into his side, Arc said, “So, you agree with me that she wants something? Good! I knew it!”

  “Well, you’ll have to wait ‘til she approaches us. Not your strong suit, waiting,” Dag said, poking a long, work-hardened finger back into her own ribs in retaliation. “Let’s go finish the last of these flight calibrations. I’m ready for a beer. Plus, there is a terrific looking guy at the bar I want to dazzle with my fabulousness.”

  Arc laughed and followed him, sending one last glance over her shoulder to the faint shadow that was the girl. “Well, maybe the guy will be more interested in my blonde loveliness than your Viking hotness,” Arc sniped at him, grinning.

  Not many would have guessed that she and Dag, as roommates, were not lovers. But Dag had a distinct preference for men and Arc wasn’t sure she could actually attract anyone worth sleeping with now with her prosthetic hand. Arc winced when she realized that she was indeed thinking of it as ‘the hand’ instead of as her hand. Well hopefully time would change that.

  There were always plenty of assholes who’d be happy to oblige her with sex, they just weren’t worth the effort. Shit! Being one-handed was a real blow to the ego.

  It took four days of Arc leaving an apple on the floor behind the pile of scrap armor for the girl to show herself fully. Arc had sat down to learn to fold the low altitude escape chute for the fighter. Having botched it twice in a row, Arc was frustrated and staring at the thing with evil in her eyes.

  “Do you want me to help you?” came the hesitant whisper.

  Arc’s eyes snapped up, catching the eyes of the skinny Vanguardian girl before her. “Yes, please! I can’t seem to get the damn thing to do what I want. It’s so fine it just moves on its own accord and won’t hold still so that I can complete the fold with this stupid hand,” she finished, waving the prosthetic hand in the air, while rubbing her human hand over her face in exasperation. “What’s the secret?”

  “You have to just ‘think it’, not ‘do it’ when you’re folding,” the girl whispered softly. “It’s Idolum tech, and they live on energy, so it’s different. Try again. The hand doesn’t matter. This time don’t ‘fold it’, just ‘think’ about folding it.”

  Arc raised her head again and the girl was gone. “Fine! I’ll try to ‘think it’. If it doesn’t work, I’m cutting this damn thing up and using it for a neck-scarf,” Arc threatened to the air. A faint giggle met her ears.

  Exhaling fully and trying to breathe more calmly, Arc set herself to ‘thinking’ she was folding the chute but trying not to move her arms. Several minutes later, a neatly packed crash chute lay on the floor. “Well, holy shit! That worked!” Arc muttered. Another giggle fluttered from nearby. “Thank you. Whoever you are,” Arc said to the air.

  “You’re welcome,” whispered past Arc’s head.

  Several days passed and almost every day Arc had a conversation with the air around her. Dag started joking that she was losing her mind and talking to herself. She’d already explained to him about the girl. Dag told her that the owner of the shop said the girl’s name was Birdie, and that he never actually saw her for months on end. She was so shy that he just shouted his orders from the door of the hangar and the next day everything was done. He assured Dag that if she was letting herself be heard, she must really like whomever it was she was talking to. Arc felt honored.

  Birdie finally asked to look at her hand. It had been a slow day and Arc was doing well in the training. Much better than the others as a matter of fact, and most likely because of the increased reflex response-time on the artificial hand, which controll
ed the joystick.

  When the others had left to hit the mess, Arc sat down and was thinking about how the new hand had helped her. She was almost unaware that Birdie had ghosted up to sit beside her until a small, dirty hand reached out for hers.

  Out of reflex, Arc grabbed the hand back. Birdie flinched. “Sorry, Birdie, I didn’t see you there. I was thinking. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Arc apologized for her action.

  “It’s ok. Your hand is really cool. I just wanted to see it,” Birdie whispered to her.

  Arc put the hand out to the side and allowed Birdie to run her fingers over it. “It is giving me very fast reflex times,” Arc admitted. “When I was having it put on, I saw a Vanguardian warrior who had a synthetic lower-arm. He really helped me feel better about it.”

  “Really?” Birdie whispered. I haven’t seen a Vanguardian up close for over eight years. That’s when I got placed here. I don’t feel very nicely towards most of them,” she added, a wrinkle in her forehead indicating her distaste for her own species.

  “His name was Caja, and he was given away to a wonderful Captain and Queen a few years after he got his injury. It totally changed his life for the better. Maybe that’s how you can think about your placement. For some reason you don’t know yet, your placement here will be for the betterment of your life,” Arc said matter-of-factly.

  Birdie looked at her thoughtfully. “Perhaps the same is true of your hand,” she said softly. “Perhaps having it will help you somehow. Already is, if your training is anything to go by,” she added with a shy smile.

  Arc could only nod. Out of her own mouth, came the lesson she needed. Having the hand could help her survive and help her crew. It was no longer ‘the hand’, but now ‘her hand’.

  Midway through their six-week training course on the Idolum fighters, Birdie finally let herself be seen by Dag, Cole, and Commander Quirke. She managed to stay still for the thirty seconds it took Arc to introduce them to her and then vanished again, leaving a tinkling giggle hanging in the air.

  “Well, glad to see you aren’t losing your mind, Arc,” the Commander said grinning. “Even I was starting to think you might be off your rocker.” This elicited another giggle from nearby. “Maybe she can help Dag learn to fold his low altitude chute, too. He still can’t pack the thing so that it would save his neck if he had to eject.”

  Eyeing the surrounding crates, Commander Quirke said, “Birdie -- I hear that’s your name -- teach this great Viking hulk to fold a chute, please. He’s hopeless.” Then he turned and stumped off.

  By the end of the day, Dag had mastered the art of ‘thinking of folding’ and the chute was good enough so that when their instructor pulled the handle, the chute whooshed out into the hangar with a great explosion of color and swirling dust. They all whooped. Dag turned to the air and said, “Thank you, Birdie. You’ve saved me from total humiliation.”

  Her faint outline could be seen against one of the far walls. “Come have a ginger beer, girl,” Commander Quirke ordered, thumping a straw into one of the soft drink packs next to the refrigerator. “We won’t hurt you or bite.”

  Birdie, to their instructor’s amazement, materialized next to Quirke, accepted the soft drink and retreated several yards away to sit on a crate to drink it. It didn’t last long, but it was the longest Birdie had stayed in sight since she’d been sent to the flight school eight years ago. Quirke figured it made the girl about fourteen years old. Even if she hadn’t had the distinct behavior that got her sent here, her runt-like stature would have put her at a disadvantage anyway. Poor little mite.

  The next day Quirke asked the air if it wanted to learn to fly. Suddenly, Birdie was there like she’d been shot from a cannon, a huge grin on her face. “Well, go on, girl. I’ve paid for your training, but you only have the three weeks. If you want to leave with us at the end of this training and work on the Clyde, you’ve got to learn to fly one of these things.”

  Birdie met Arc’s eyes and they both had to acknowledge that the lesson was true. The hand helped Arc be better for the crew, and Birdie’s placement was helping her have a better life.

  The little Vanguardian girl was better than all of them within two weeks. It was a bit depressing if Arc was honest. What was with the young anyway? She was only twenty-four and had a synthetic hand, and this little fourteen-year-old could almost out-fly her already.

  Well, not quite that bad. But still, it was depressingly easy for Birdie in the cockpit. Oh well, she’d be a great help onboard Clyde and Arc liked her. Arc was surprised that the training center had let her go. But that turned out to be explainable when their instructor’s nephew turned up to take Birdie’s former job. Arc doubted he’d be able to do half the job Birdie had done, but their loss was the Clyde’s gain.

  When they bid goodbye to the flight school, their instructor warned them that Birdie might not ever be able to stay in the same room with any of them for long. That was ok with Quirke. All Birdie had to do was fly a fighter, man any station he asked her to, try her hand at cooking, and clean up around Clyde. For that, he’d forgive her anything.

  Commander Quirke was sick to death of everyone’s complaints about having to take rotations as cook and the cleaning of the common areas and heads. That was Birdie’s responsibility now. In return, she got off Gateka and into space. She also learned to fly and was earning a wage. Birdie was delighted with the trade. She turned out to be an ace pilot, a great cleaner and a good cook, so the crew was just as delighted.

  Training Birdie had cost Quirke money, but he figured they would save it on the first contract they used the fighters on. They would be their own security and save a packet!

  Arc wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. Ok, so they could fly the fighters. Would they be able to hold their own against a better trained assailant? None of them had ever flown in an air battle. She felt like it might be like lambs to slaughter on their first encounters. Time would tell.

  Chapter Six

  Run to Renegar

  When the Clyde dropped off their fourth run without any mishaps involving pirates or contract failures, Quirke was elated. The last run had been from Gaiaca, the farming planet, to Zabados 9. As the crew took a little shore leave, the Commander had Arc, as his First Mate, accompany him to the trading station center to look at the open contracts they could choose from.

  Several were shorter than they wanted, and most were from known criminals or unreliable firms that didn’t pay well or on time. The remaining four or five all looked promising. One jumped out at Arc. It was for a ‘bio-diverse’ haulage contract to the planet of Renegar. She pointed it out to Quirke. “That looks interesting, Sir.”

  “Ah, Renegar. Isn’t that where the Vanguardian warrior at the rehab center was from? The one that took a shine to you?” Quirke rumbled, a twinkle in his eye.

  “Not sure about that, Sir, but I do believe it’s his planet,” Arc said, refusing to rise to the bait. “Says here that the hauler has to be ‘approved’ before the contract is accepted. Do you want to try for it?”

  Quirke whistled low and between his ragged front-teeth, “Well, look at that pay packet. Yeah, we’ll try for this one, alright,” he added.

  Five minutes later they’d signed the application for the contract and were told they’d have the agreement or refusal in fifteen minutes. Sitting down to wait, the Commander ran over the contracts still on the screen before them, giving Arc a run-down on the haulers and contractors. Who was good; who was bad; and who was completely unreliable. It didn’t leave many professionals in the end.

  Between corrupt firms or dishonest cargo haulers, the opportunities for an honest, reliable hauler were immense. No wonder the Clyde was now sporting new nanite Soclaued armor, upgraded engines, top and bottom-mounted weapons, and loaded with two Idolum fighters. They could afford it because they were a sought-after crew. Arc hadn’t realized the extent to which they were successful because of their insurance coverage, bonding license and ability to put down money for a stake
in some of the loads.

  As Arc chewed this thought over, the station trade supervisor came waddling over. That’s what one got for living on a trading station where all the foods were imported, and anything could be found, Arc supposed, fat!

  “Your contract has been approved!” The supervisor said cheerfully. “I’d almost given up hope of finding someone before the deadline. The people of Renegar are very particular about the people permitted in their air space. I’ve only filled one previous contract for them and they weren’t happy with the haulers once they had fulfilled the first part of the requirements. Quite difficult people,” he added, puckering his thick lips as though he’d tasted something sour.

  “What’s the load?” Quirke asked. “We can load now and go in a few hours.”

  “The load is live animals,” the fat supervisor said, smirking a bit. “You did check on the contract that you were able to haul agricultural and live animal cargos, didn’t you?”